


Burning red

by Rein_Deilerd



Category: Hercules: The Animated Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Body Horror, Burn injuries, Drama, F/M, High School, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rein_Deilerd/pseuds/Rein_Deilerd
Summary: Sometimes, words can burn.Sometimes, they will.Sometimes, it's not anybody's fault, but the burns are still there.
Relationships: Icarus (Disney)/Cassandra (Disney: Hercules)
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An AU in which everyone's genders were switched, but the essences of the characters remained intact, with all it entails. I kinda wanted to attempt an experiment like that to see if any of the characters would show different sides of themselves - let's look and judge for ourselves. Isla is fem!Icarus, Cassio is male!Cassandra, Hera is fem!Hercules, everyone else is obvious enough, I think. Once again, it's a fic where nothing goes well and everyone gets hurt. That's teenhood for you.  
> Once again, huge thanks to Lee for motivating me and giving me inspiration! It means the world to me.

What stuck out in his head the most afterwards was, surprisingly enough, her scarlet evening tunic – not the screaming, not the tears, not even the nauseating smell of burning flesh. He could close his tired bloodshot eyes at any moment and see every detail: the waves of blood-red fabric cascading down her shoulders and over the burgundy thread tying the tunic up right above her hips; the small diamond-shaped openings in the loose sleeves showing fractions of tanned skin; the length of the tunic just barely not covering her knees. On a different girl, this tunic, paired up with gold and ruby tree branch-shaped pins in her unruly hair, could have looked positively stunning, this much he was ready to admit – he even felt a little bit sad for such a daring ensemble to be wasted on somebody as obnoxious and unable to behave as Isla, the bane of his high school existence. It’s not like they weren’t friends, or he hated her, or anything like that – tolerating Isla in extremely small dosages was perfectly fine for Cassio, and sometimes he almost liked her company, but then she would scream vows of undying love into his ear, or start counting their future offspring, or do something equally embarrassing, drawing in the attention of the entire school – and Cassio, who wished for nothing but to stay in the shadows and be left alone, would immediately lose all sympathy he’s ever had for her.

Truly, Isla had an uncanny talent for making things worse, as if they weren’t bad enough already. 

He didn’t want to go to that school party, or any party for that matter, but Hera practically dragged him by his sleeves – it was supposedly in honor of her mother, and it was the “high-brow event” of the year, and the entire school would be there, all dressed fancily and drinking presumably non-alcoholic cocktails. Truth to be told, he went mostly for the cocktails, and in hopes that Isla wouldn’t be there. Alas, there were no cocktails, and Isla’s presence was as loud and flashy as it could be. Just his luck.

He didn’t plan for the evening to go to waste, though. After their first (and, hopefully, last) conversation of the day, filled with Isla being an ecstatic little puppy over Cassio’s non-effort party look and Hera trying politely to get away to mingle with the crowd, the three friends went their separate ways, caught in the flow of the celebration. This part of the event, between the beginning and the incident, was now a blur in his head – he met some people, talked to them through the music, they got him something to drink – not a fancy cocktail he’d hoped for, but a drink nonetheless. He might have had a bit too much, but it didn’t make him sick at all – instead, it made him confident. It made him brave. The emotions and desires – yes, desires – he’d kept behind his sardonic exterior and never really knew how to express were dying to get out. After dancing alone for a bit, in a manner much uncharacteristic of him, he laid his eyes on a girl he vaguely knew – a girl his normal self kind of liked, but his drunk self found to be godlike - and he almost felt like coming to this party was not such a bad idea.

That is, until he approached the girl, putting on his best friendly face, and struck up a conversation. He felt like he was doing just fine – he was charming, he smiled at her, he offered her a drink – yet her face grew more and more disgusted with every new line he uttered. In his usual state, he would have given up immediately and never spoken to her, or anyone else, ever again, but his newfound confidence needed an answer first. He got his answer all right.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?! Your girlfriend is standing right there looking at us, and yet you are being all flirty with me, you animal! Go sober up, you need it.”

“My what…?”

He spun his head around, confused and a doubting himself for a bit (when, for Gods’ sake, did he get a girlfriend?!), and there she was, rushing towards them through the crowd in her burning red tunic. She run into him with her entire frame, throwing her arms around his shoulders, a slight push away from forcing him into the ground. Her cheeks glowed pink; she was just as drunk as him, if not more so. 

“Oh, I see you’ve already met Cassie,” – she spoke to the girl in front of them, seemingly tone-deaf to the conversation which had just transpired – “Was my Cassie-Sassie talking about me again? He is so gloomy-doomy most of the time, but when he speaks of us, his eyes just light up, don’t you think? I couldn’t wish for a better boyf…”

Cassio had heard enough.

Grabbing Isla by the hand, he hurried to the nearest door – away from the girl he was just talking to, from the crowd silently judging him, from his own thoughts tied in a messy knot. He pushes Isla inside (she didn’t protest, giggling all the way) and entered after her, closing the door behind them. The room they’ve escaped into was cool and semi-dark, a storage room of sorts, crammed with some left-over party decorations yet spacious enough for the two teens to not touch each other unnecessarily. Cassio didn’t want to touch anyone right now – he was trying desperately to calm down, yet his heart was ripping his chest cavity apart, he face was fiery hot and his eyes kept showing him a slideshow of evening gowns and disgruntled faces, all disgusted with him over something he had no part in. In that moment, he hated each and every one of those faces - but mostly the one he could still make out in the darkness of the room.

“Why did you tell her that I’m your boyfriend?!” – the words came out in a tone that was a bit harsher than his usual flavor, but he didn’t care. He didn’t really care about anything but his burning anger anymore.

“Why wouldn’t I,” – Isla smiled at him innocently, looking a bit surprised, almost as if she really didn’t understand, “I know it’s complicated between us, Cassie, sweetheart, but we shouldn’t hide our love from others! Look how happy people are for us! They even…”

“What kind of “love” are you talking about?! I’ve told you there is none, and I stand by my words!” – Cassio felt an explosion about to happen, and he was not going to hold back, not today, - “You do realize that you are delusional, right?! I was never your boyfriend, and there is not a chance in Netherworld that I will ever be. We went over it a thousand times already, yet you…” – Cassio bit his lip, but the pain only made him angrier, - “You are still the same obnoxious creep! I swear, if you weren’t Hera’s friend, I would have reported you to the school staff for harassment a long time ago, as I should. I keep giving you second chances, yet you still only make my life worse. Why am I even trying with you anymore?! If you weren’t there, I would have… My life would have been…” – something inside of Cassio screamed at him to stop; he saw Isla’s smile disappear, her lower lip trembling slightly, eyes watering, but he had to get it out, all these years of biting his tongue, of tolerating her grip upon his life, of forgiving and forgetting… He couldn’t take it anymore, and he wouldn’t.

“My life would have been perfect if you just disappeared!”

Truth to be told, he expected her to cry. To become hysterical, to faint dramatically, to call him a monster or even to hit him – he was ready for that, and, in a way, he would have understood – he did go too far, and was already regretting half of what he said. However, she did not cry, at least not audibly so – he could see a single tear run down her cheek, and that was it. Instead, she looked him straight in the eyes, as if in disbelief. Her face became vacant for a moment, all feelings drained – then she doubled over in an instant, covering her face with both her palms.

Then she screamed.

Cassio had never heard anyone scream like this before – it was a blood-curling, soul-shattering scream, and it did not stop, as if the girl’s lung capacity had suddenly doubled. At first it angered him once again – she was way overdoing it, and the entire party could hear them now; but, once he came closer to her to try and console her (and talk some sense into her, if possible), he felt the smell of something burning, and his eyes caught a glimpse of flashy redness in between her fingers, and he knew that something was wrong. Without thinking straight, he grabbed her hands with his and forced them away from her face – and then he almost screamed himself.

Her face was covered in blisters and spots, ranging from huge dark splotches to small blood-red dots. The redness was spreading fast, already covering her face from forehead up to chin, and continuing onto her neck, with pinkish-white bubbling and scarring making her features almost unrecognizable. The last thing on her face that seemed untouched by the burning were her eyes – and yet the right one, the red one, was bloodshot, with a thin white film covering the pupil. The left, black one, however, was perfectly fine – and it was looking straight at him with indescribable fear, as if begging for help. Meanwhile, her mouth was still wide open – even after she became unable to scream anymore.

“It hurts… It… So much… Cassio…” – she whispered, her voice hoarse with pain and exhaustion. He could see that, but he had no damn idea what to do, what was going on and whether or not he could help. He knew he had to do something, yet his body refused to move – he was stuck holding her hands as her body was shivering, tears running down her disfigured face, throat making pathetic sobbing noises in an attempt to scream again. Cassio heard the door open behind him, myriads of voices filling the room, but he couldn’t make out a single word – it was as if a vacuum sealed him and Isla in a space separate from the world at large. There was no time, no help coming or answers found – only him, her and the pain which was melting her skin off her face. In a last-ditch attempt to do something, to move the story forward, to make himself useful, he tried to hug her – but the second he touched her shoulders, he got pushed away with the force he would never expect such a frail girl to have. The pain, it seemed, had removed some precaution switches inside of her, and now she was not holding back – and a single glance upon the greyish-red skin in diamond-shaped openings of her sleeves told him the reason why. It wasn’t just her face, oh Gods, her entire body was burning.

“Let me through, let me through,” – a single voice boomed over the others right near his ear as a strong arm pushed him aside, and Daedala, clad in blue evening tunic, her elaborate hairdo now messy and almost undone, ran to her daughter’s side. The woman grabbed Isla’s hands the way Cassio did a moment before, took one look at her face and let out a horrified gasp – then the room burst with motion, and Cassio felt himself unable to concentrate on anything anymore. Somebody was screaming, but not Isla; somebody ran out to vomit, or to call for the doctor, who knows. The last he saw of Isla, she seemed to have passed out in her mother’s arms; then people swarmed around the two, and Cassio got pushed further away; then, Hera’s face appeared in front of him, frantic, wide-eyed, pale.

“Cassio, what… What happened?!”

“I don’t know… I don’t…” – he felt the words stick to his throat, refusing to come out and be told, - “I don’t know, but it’s bad. It’s very bad.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hospitals are a heavy place, as Cassio has learned today.

Cassio stared at his own hands blankly, trying not to think too much – his head has been hurting for at least an hour now, and he feared that any movement or thought could make it worse. It wasn’t the only thing he feared, though, wasn’t even in the top ten – he just tried, for the time being, to concentrate on things he could handle, because his body has never held so much shame and anxiety inside of it, and he was genuinely surprised he was still capable of anything at all. Not that he was of much help – he has been sitting in the hall of the legendary Hippocratia’s hospital for at least twenty minutes now, and could only hope that the woman knew her job well.

Apparently, Isla’s been there for much longer than twenty minutes – it just took him time to get to the hospital, that with having to run home to warn his parents of what happened (gruesome details mercifully spared) and changing out of his blood-stained clothes (he couldn’t bear the sight of these stains, a grim reminder of what just happened right before his eyes). Apparently, her palms were bleeding when she pushed him away. Who knew what else was bleeding? He didn’t see much, just her face, but that was more than enough to ensure he won’t be sleeping soundly for some time, not that his conscience would let him anyway. 

When he arrived, still confused and visibly lost, barely registering what was happening around him as reality, and not a part of a messed-up dream, Hera was already there – sitting on a worn-out bench in the hallway, fists clenched, hair in a fiery mess, deep-blue shadows underneath her eyes. Cassio doubted he looked much better, but the sight still made him freeze for a moment. He had never seen the demi-goddess in such a state – in their little group, she was always the brave one, the heroic one, the one to pull everyone together and find a way out of some horrible mess. Cassio remembered seeing her sad, desperate, doubting herself, but never this… Lifeless. Broken. Just as lost as he was, if not more. She was still wearing her evening gown.

Cassio threw a side glance at Hera – the girl did not appear to have moved an inch from her seat, but her arms were now clenched together in front of her face, and she seemed to be whispering – a prayer to a God or a Goddess, most probably. Cassio listened closely, without really meaning to, assuming the prayer to be directed at Hera’s own mother – but then he made out a familiar name. Apollo. The Sun Goddess, but also the Goddess of Healing. The goddess who both saved and doomed Isla on that fateful day six years ago. The goddess responsible for his visions – why, in the name of Olympus, did he not get a vision this time?! If only he did, he would have prevented it. He would have done his best. He would have…

A creaking noise of a door opening made Cassio jump a little – he was too lost in thought to notice there was a door in front of him this whole time. The woman standing in the doorway looked pale and exhausted, her warm and usually friendly face unreadable - until she smiled weakly at Hera and Cassio, that is.

“She just woke up, and is in a stable condition now. You can go visit her. I need to talk with her mother for a bit, so please excuse me – if anything happens, call for me, I’ll be nearby. Just make sure she doesn’t remove the bandages, okay?”

Hippocratia did not need to repeat that twice – both teenagers rose to their feet in unison and ran into the ward, barely avoiding knocking the doctor off her feet. The second the two had their backs turned towards her, the woman’s smile disappeared. She needed no sixth sense to know that she had a long and painful conversation ahead of her.

Isla was lying on pristine white sheets, in a room that felt too sterilized and lacking in personality to be fit for her, but otherwise quite comfortable. At least, the girl on the bed had a similar body shape and familiar unruly hair sticking from underneath the bandages covering her head. In fact, everything not hidden by a white hospital tunic was covered in bandages, leaving only a small part of her face visible – an eyelid that fluttered open the second she heard her friends’ voices. It was her eye, no doubts about that. It was Isla. Everything was real and not a dream, and now Cassio had to finally accept it before things get worse.

Things did not hesitate to get worse. Isla’s eye fixed itself on Cassio’s face, unblinking. The girl made an attempt to sit upwards in her bed, but gave up almost immediately – it was either the bandages being too tight or her body still hurting all over. It did not, however, prevent her from speaking.

“Cassio, baby…” – she whispered, her throat seemingly still hoarse from all the screaming she’d done a couple hours ago, - “I’m so sorry… I kinda ruined the party, didn’t I?”

She left out a small laugh, which made her entire body flinch from the pain. Hera hurriedly put her hands over Isla’s bandaged palm, as if to calm her down.

“Isla, it’s all right, we’re here, you didn’t ruin anything, you’ll be fine…” – words rushed out of Hera’s mouth in a frenzy, as if a dam had been broken. She was clearly nearing her mental breaking point – Isla does mean a lot to her, after all. Cassio almost felt like a third wheel, but he refused to leave – his guilt had cemented him in place, glued him to Isla’s bed, forcing him to stare at what he’s done to her. Meanwhile, Hera’s monologue was coming to an end:

“So, anyway, what happened to you? Cassio says, you just…” – Hera stuttered, unable to finish her sentence. Isla did get the point, though.

“I don’t remember much… Cassie and I were talking, and then, I guess, I blacked out or something, and woke up here… This headache is killing me, I swear I’m never drinking again. Anyway, what’s wrong with my eye? Why is it all covered up and stuff? Speaking of which, my entire body… Oh.”

Isla’s eye suddenly widened, in either surprise or fear. Probably the latter.

“Oh, I think I remember. My skin…” – her voice cracked dangerously, - “My skin was…”

In a movement not anticipated by anyone in the room, Isla raised her hands to her face, feeling it with rapid movements, as if trying to remove the bandages in a hurry. Hera shoot Cassio a look of desperate worry; understanding her silent plea without any words needed, he gently caught Isla’s arms and returned them to the covers they used to rest on; unsurprisingly, she had no strength left in her body to resist.

“Please, don’t touch or remove anything,” – Hera exclaimed, trying her best to keep calm when she was anything but, - “Hippocratia will be here soon, she’ll take care of everything. For now, please, rest for a bit. You will be fine, Isla, I promise you.”

Hera smiled a reassuring smile at her friend; while Isla’s facial expression remained hidden, her body became visibly less tense. Her breathing slowly grew less heavy as Hera continued to whisper to her – it seemed that, for some reason, raising her voice in such a room felt wrong.

“Okay… I guess I’ll doze off for a moment, if you don’t mind. I’m kinda tired, and my head’s spinning a bit. Please make sure this stuff’s off me when I wake up,” – with a hint of smile in her voice, Isla closed her eye and seemed to have fallen asleep immediately. Hera spent a few minutes sitting near her, running her hand through her hair as gently as possible – then she stood up, clearly intent on leaving. Her reassuring smile withered.

“I have to talk to Hippocratia. Now,” – with that, Hera was out of the room, and only now did Cassio notice that he was still holding Isla by her hands. The second the thought of following Hera crossed his mind, he felt Isla grip his hands tightly. Her eye flew open once again, staring directly at him. “I’m sorry,” – she whispered, her voice almost drowned out by Cassio’s own heartbeat he was suddenly very aware of, - “I’m so sorry, Cassie… I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

Cassio swallowed a lump in his throat, almost throwing it up in the process. She remembered. She remembered all this time, and he had the audacity to touch her again, and now she was apologizing, as if it was him who was bedridden and had most of his skin burned off. This was all too much, and Cassio suddenly realized that he hadn’t said a word during the entire visit, and he felt so ashamed he could die on the spot if only the Gods allowed him to. He cleared his throat, trying to look Isla straight in the eye, because she deserved at least that much.

“I should be the one apologizing. I took it too far. I shouldn’t have said most… Any of these things, I never meant to hurt you like that,” – words came out one at a time, and with each one Cassio felt more and more like a complete fool. He could barely think straight, the exhaustion messing with whatever he was trying to convey. A part of him wanted to apologize until the Netherworld freezes over; another part still stood by his words, at least partially so, but that was the part that he hated right now, the part that hurt his irreplaceable friend. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. Isla listened to him silently, then raised her hand slightly, gesturing for him to stop.

“That’s okay, Cassie. I understand. You would never say anything mean and mean it, right? I know you in and out, after all. I’m so happy that little quarrel’s behind us,” – was it just Cassio’s imagination, or was Isla’s voice shaking, as if she was fighting back tears? He couldn’t shake off the feeling of something being fundamentally wrong.

“Now, I’m really going to sleep. Goodnight, Cassie-poo…” – with that, she closed her eye once again, and this time seemed genuine. After waiting for a while, Cassio stood up, his legs shaking slightly, head empty, throat as dry as the vilest of deserts. Regarding setting up his boundaries with Isla, he was now officially back to square one, having capitulated completely in the face of her newfound helpless state. Regarding answers as to what actually happened last night, he had no clue whatsoever. 

He barely registered waking through the hospital’s main hall – he only noticed the sunshine bathing the hospital floor in peachy hues, and felt no emotions towards the fact that it was morning already. He would have gotten lost or walked out of the hospital and gotten hit by a horse carriage, no doubt about that, if he didn’t stumble upon a familiar figure in his daze. Hera was standing still near a door, her ear pressed to the surface. She noticed Cassio and gestured for him to join. The voices were loud enough to make out words, but Cassio had trouble focusing in his current state – yet he still tried his best to pierce the conversation together.

“…will heal completely in two or three days. For normal burns, that would be unprecedented, but here we seem to have a unique case on our hands – I’ve never seen human skin regenerate at such a fast pace. There is no way to tell what will happen to her eye, however, we will need further examinations, but I would remain hopeful – if her skin is capable of such wonders, why wouldn’t her eye be?” – the voice clearly belonged to Hippocratia.

“So, she will be okay? My girl will make it, right?” – another voice, filled with worry to the point of being barely recognizable, was still placed by Cassio as being Daedala’s. 

“Indeed. I plan on keeping her hospitalized for a week or so after the burns heal, to make sure of her full recovery,” – Hippocratia grew quiet for a moment, - “Still, this is not what worries me. You are saying that her burns appeared spontaneously, right?”

“That’s what Cassio said. There are no substances found in our school that could do that, and the boy would never hurt her – I know him, Isla an him have been friends since childhood.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I am,” – Daedala raised her voice, - “I know my students better than you do your patients.”

Hippocratia ignored the last remark. Her voice grew only more concerned.

“Then I’m afraid I cannot help you.”

“What?! What do you mean?!”

“In the short run, she will be fine. However, what happened once while unprompted will happen again, and I cannot guarantee how long it will take for a similar event to occur once more. I am aware of Isla’s history with divine intervention, and her ailment seems to stem from exactly that – its nature is of higher powers, and us doctors are mere humans. All we can do right now is observe and pray.”

A sound of furniture being punched echoed through the door, making both teens jump away from it instinctively. Daedala never let her anger get the best of her during her classes – but now Cassio could clearly see why no one would ever, ever want to truly anger the inventress. “So that’s who Isla got her strength from” – he thought absent-mindedly. Behind the door, he could hear quiet sobbing and even more hushed talking that he was now unable to make out.

Cassio was taken out of his thoughts by a sudden movement beside him – Hera straightened her back, eyes beaming with sudden resolve. Cassio looked at her, feeling as confused as before.

“Did you hear that?” – Hera inquired; her voice hushed but powerful.

“Which part? The “can and probably will happen again” part, or the “can do nothing but pray” part?” – Cassio asked, still clueless. Hera almost beamed with energy, which was weird for someone who just spent a sleepless night at a hospital.

“The “divine intervention” part! We will ask my mom for help! She commands all Gods and Goddesses, one of them has to know what it was and how to cure it, I’m sure of it. Come on!” – Hera grabbed Cassio by his sleeve and dragged him out of the hospital and into the sunlight that was suddenly hurting his tired eyes. While running through the streets trying to keep pace with a demi-goddess, Cassio had only one thought on his mind, besides his legs begging him to slow down and his tired brain aching for sleep. A thought he would voice to Hera once they reach the shrine of her almighty mother.

“We have to ask Apollo. If anyone knows, it’s her.”


End file.
